Re: Glastonbury Festival 2014

What a lineup:
58. Oasis, 1994

The NME Stage for Sunday was a taste of things to come. It included Blur, Pulp, Radiohead and, second on the bill (after Echobelly), a pre-Definitely Maybe Oasis whose rock star cockiness and contagious songs ruled all.

Re: Glastonbury Festival 2014

The last ten minutes are the highlight of the weekend. Holy shit. Gotta say, though, better in the dark with the strobe effect, but I love that she stole someone's hat and threw garbage at people. After witnessing "Your Lips Are Red" at Sled Island, my mouth was dry and sore from hanging open forever and I collapsed leaning on the stage in half-fetal position and it took a while to get it together and get home. So glad they are streaming Park Stage sets now.

Re: Glastonbury Festival 2014

Prince apparently got butthurt and blamed them for promoting his playing the festival when they were still in negotiations. Because festival organizers are the same as tabloid and message board rumors.

Re: Glastonbury Festival 2014

Originally Posted by Boourns

After witnessing "Your Lips Are Red" at Sled Island, my mouth was dry and sore from hanging open forever and I collapsed leaning on the stage in half-fetal position and it took a while to get it together and get home.

Re: Glastonbury Festival 2014

Whew, what a festival! Had a fantastic, epic and brutal time of it. I found 5 days at Worthy Farm to be more draining than a two week+ trip to Burning Man. If you ever get the chance to go, I suggest you resist the urge to party in London too much before you depart. When the mud gets going, you have to conserve your energy - you can't afford to walk across the farm to see a band if you want to be able to keep going late at night.

Glastonbury really can't be compared to Coachella. It's so much bigger and so lawless by comparison (the Stone Circle is an open air drug market... one guy had a dentist's n2o tank on a furniture dolly). In the end I felt grateful for how Coachella affords the chance to see so many bands with minimal effort.

Random thoughts and highlights:

- Manic Street Preachers were my musical highlight by far. Tight and flawless set with perfect sound. And Nicky Wire took a shit on Imagine Dragons to boot.
- Dolly Parton. Perfect.
- Parquet Courts played an excellent and weird set. During the last few songs Austin Brown looked like a young Beck on a ketamine bender.
- Deltron 3030 was also great. Loved Del's outfit: a rain slicker and wellies.
- Caught Jake Bugg's acoustic set and came away impressed.
- Arcade Fire: I guess I've seen them too many times? Win came off as jaded and burnt out. Snide, even. I feel bad that they have so much touring left to go. They did a funny mashup of Britpop and air horns for the "cover" after Lorde cancelled on them.
- Blondie had a crowd of at least 90K on the Other Stage at noon on Friday. (The band was good but sadly there were sound issues.) You couldn't leave until it was over. Not something you could imagine at an American festival.
- Managed to catch Kasabian's last song following Massive Attack. Fun stuff. The scene afterwards was psycho - young yobs throwing plastic camp chairs onto a giant trash fire, that sort of thing.
- Bafojondo was a lot of fun.
- Finally got to see Little Dragon during their short BBCi set and enjoyed it.
- St. Vincent and Warpaint... The appeal eludes me. To each their own, though.
- Food was pretty good. Bars were great but expensive in terms of dollars. The exchange rate is a killer, especially if you don't truck in crates of your own cider/lager.
- The late night areas. Fun? Yes. Impressive art? No doubt. But the crowds and queues are insane and sort of tamped down the party factor for me. Burning Man camps do this sort of thing much more effectively. I did see the Rabbit Hole's "secret" tunnel catch fire briefly. Funny, but super dangerous.
- All the money and effort is worth it when you catch that first gorgeous view from the hill above the Park.
- Mud. Fucking hell. Day 1 was funny, Day 2 annoying and Day 3 just unbearable. I guess I have weak feet? Scary to think it could have been far worse. But it's nice to think about how perfect the event would be if you got lucky with the weather.
- I loved the Strummerville campfire. Great place to rest your weary toes.